As far as warranties go, when I investigated last year, I came across a consumer reports article stating that failure rates on LCDs and Plasmas were around the same as old style TV's, 1-2%. When I spent $1000 on the last tube TV I bought, I didn't even think about an extended warranty, and the store didn't push one (local independant).

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Fred

-------Blujays1: Spending Fred's money one bottle at a time, no two... Oh crap!

Very good, Cam. As far as extending the warranty, as Joe and Fred pointed out, LCD and plasma sets have been very reliable and its highly unlikely that the extended warranty would be of financial benefit to you(although it certainly would be to the salesman).

I don't know, I still hear many problems with dead pixels and such in the forums. I for one have an entire line of dead pixels 4" up from the bottom on my Samsung LN-T4069F and it happened just shy of the 1 yr factory warranty and luckily I did purchase the extended warranty, so I am just waiting till it nears the end of its life(the extended warranty period) before having it repaired/replaced.

I paid $299 for 3 years. I think they wanted $399 for 5 years. I didn't want to go for any but I managed to get talked into it. I knew the pitch was coming. I thought there might be a lot to go wrong with one of these. (52" LCD)

I'm not usually a big fan of extended warranties but the Sharp LCD we had took a dump just short of the 24 month period and I'm glad we had ours. I would say 5 bones is awful steep though. Cam, look over at the big 550 thread on AVS, they have a lot of good info there.

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Rick

"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." Sigmund Freud

"Opposing View on Break-In: Not all plasma owners believe a break-in period is necessary for the later generations of Samsung plasma sets. The Samsung factory supports this view. Samsung's Support FAQ, as of 2007, states: "Samsung Plasma TVs do not require a break-in period." There has been much concern and confusion over this issue because both Pioneer and Panasonic published documents as late as 2004 stating their plasma sets required 1,000 hours of break-in. As of 2007, no plasma manufacturers suggest their sets require break-in. Some owners see this as good news, while some market analysts believe as plasmas continue to lose market share to LCD's, plasma manufacturers are no longer pointing out areas of concern that could impact sales. NET: Use your own best judgment"